More money, less strings
FE, HE, In The News, Ofsted, Politics, Primary Education Sunday, October 24th, 2010
The fact that the euphemistically-titled Spending Review has guaranteed an increase in money for schools is usually applauded.
That this money – an extra £4bn – is coming at a time when those in FE and HE face hefty cuts will raise little cheer for those who are paying mortgages, have children to feed and saw education as free of the boom-bust cycle that so plagues the private sector and job security.
Even the money that is being squeezed out of the FE/HE sponge and passed onto to schools isn’t without a cost. This cost not simply being a financial one, of course, but also the right to decide how that money is spent.
Just lik NuLab, the Coalition of One will expect to control where that money goes and how it is spent. They do this, naturally, through the quangos such as OfSTED that still remain.
What is needed is freedom for schools to do as they have always done even before the Age of OfSTED and get on with schooling. But this is only feasible if there are no strings. By attaching strings to how money is spent, unnecessary bureaucracy is created. Without the strings OfSTED and those like it lose their raison d’etre. Period.
The imaginary world of success and failure that these strings and inspectors create and perpetuate serves only the very people that have a vested interest in the system being created and perpetuated. No system, no problem.